Ian Nepomniachtchi, born July 14, 1990 in Bryansk, started playing chess at the tender age of 4. A former Russian junior champion, European U10 champion in 2000, European U12 champion in 2001 and 2002, World U12 champion in 2002, IM in 2004, and runner-up in the 2007 World U-18 championship, he has been coached during the past few years by one of Russia’s most reputable chess coaches, Sergey Janovsky. He lists Mikhail Tal as his favorite chess player.

Penguincw: Congrats to Ian Nepomniachtchi for winning the Aeroflot Open (2015). He entered the tournament as the 2nd seed, and finished 1st on tiebreaks ahead of Dubov on black games (5-4). Nepo also drew their H2H game with black. Overall, he finished with 7/9, (+5,-0,=4).

Since he won Aeroflot, that means he'll be heading to Dormtund (I heard he has a plus record against Kramnik).

Though not as important, but still notable to me, he gained 12.4 rating points. This has allowed him to climb from 2714 to 2728 (and also #33 to #29).

fisayo123: Congratulations to Yan on his recent successes! Glad to see a great player who plays really exciting chess do well. I've noticed in classical chess he has actually started to think deeply on his moves instead of playing so quickly, essentialy treating it like a rapid game. It sure helps.

diagonal: The Palmarčs of Nepo is beginning to take shape, a brief selection:
Russian and European Chess Champion: Winner of the <European Chess Championship 2010> at Rijeka as clear first. Later that same year, ’Nepo’ won also the <Russian Championship 2010> at Moscow after a playoff against Sergey Karjakin.

Record <thrice winner of the Aeroflot Open>. He won 2008 outright and 2015 the Aeroflot Open on tie-break in classical chess, plus in the 2013 edition (rapid and blitz, no classical chess) the blitz event as clear first.

After a phase of consolidation, including (shared) second places at Dortmund and twice at Havana, Capablanca Memorial, plus further successes in open and rapid tournaments, Ian Nepomniachtchi took within three months the reputated international invitational tournaments at <Danzhou (Hainan) 2016> and the <Tal Memorial 2016> (ahead of Giri, Aronian, Anand, Kramnik, etc.), both as clear first.

He's a member of the gold medal-winning Russian team at the <2013 World Team Chess Championship in Antalya> and at the <2015 European Team Chess Championship in Reykjavík>.

Well, the names of the next Wijk aan Zee (Tata Steel) tournament in January 2017 will be soon announced on October 28th, 2016: Ian is now a MUST (so far, he played moderately once in the B and once in the A section), ..would be nice to see him together with Volokitin and Carlsen, this Norwegian wonderboy really has a lousy score form earlier days against some people :)

How would you announce the traditional Tata Steel tournament in Wijk aan Zee? Every event needs a Narrative.

So many invitation series recently collapsed :(

Wijk aan Zee really has tradition, and a fantastic present line-up. It's definitely a Chess Festival for hundreds of players.

> Wijk aan Zee offers the sole all-play-all international tournament in classical chess to invite more than ten players today!

> Wijk aan Zee, and the Capablanca Memorial (Havana, Varadero et al.) are today the only two all-play-all international (super)tournaments in classical chess still to establish a strong B-group as it was a longtime tradition in chess:

> Wijk aan Zee seems to be the only tournament (existing more than let's say twenty years) with a complete database, including all games and information about every player who has participated at Beverwijk and Wijk aan Zee in the past eight decades (!) since 1938 on its website:

diagonal: <MS> If one has no argument, it's always a weapon of last resort to come with general claims such as "do you work in advertising?"
You did not give any reason why Wiik aan Zee hasn't / isn't / and won't be (sic!) the Wimbledon of chess.

Must be a personal matter of taste, but your bashing and poor prognosis without any argument just makes you look like frustrated.

Having no business connection to Tata Steel whatsoever, I love chess and I'm grateful that Beverwijk / Wijk aan Zee still and again is a very flourishing tournament series: <The Wimbledon of Chess>, a closer look is given above.

perfidious: <diagonal> While in agreement with <Divine Miss S> that, so far as I know, that fine event at Wijk aan Zee has never been styled 'the Wimbledon of chess', his gratuitous slagging is regrettable.

I share your enthusiasm for chess and welcome your thoughts on this or other pages.

kappertjes: I don't like the Wimbledon comparison mainly because I don't care for tennis and would rate Wijk higher than Wimbledon.

<with a complete database, including all games and information about every player who has participated at Beverwijk and Wijk aan Zee in the past eight decades>

Fun stuff. So we learn that Kasparov and Spassky both have wijk-winrates of 73%. Both are clearly behind the legendary Arnold van der Hoek at 78%. Thing is the site calls it win% as well as score, which does not seem to me to be the same thing.

gopi11: It's unfortunate that Nepo's play fizzled out in the last 2 rounds of the World Rapids Championship after a sizzling start, but I still believe he earned the right to be chosen at the next GCT...

The 2017 Grand Chess Tour wildcard selections have been finalised and the following three players have been offered wildcards for the 2017 Grand Chess Tour:

1 Ian Nepomniachtchi

2 Sergey Karjakin

3 Viswanathan Anand

"GM Ian Nepomniachtchi earns his place due to his consistency across all time formats which sees him placed 5th on the URS (Universal Rating List) as at 1 January 2017. This earned him selection as the highest ranked player on the URS not already picked."

cro777: GCT Announcement: "The final wildcard has been awarded to former World Champion Viswanathan Anand who is ranked 10th on the URS rating list as at 1 January 2017. He also tied for 4th place in the 2016 GCT tour despite only competing in three of the four events in 2016."

Eyal: The three last players of the nine series regulars announced qualified by this newfangled URS (universal rating system) of theirs - http://universalrating.com/ratings..... It goes 1.Carlsen (already qualified by classical rating) 2.Kramnik (already qualified by classical rating) 3.Nakamura (already qualified as 2nd in the 2016 series) 4.Caruana (already qualified as 3rd in the 2016 series) 5.Nepomniachtchi (1st to qualify by URS) 6.Karjakin (2nd to qualify by URS) 7.So (already qualified as winner of the 2016 series) 8.MVL (already qualified by classical rating). So one more qualifying spot by URS remains, and Anand got it despite being #10 and Grischuk being #9 - I suppose Grischuk turned down the invitation?! (Aronian, #11 in this list, is 1st replacement).

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